


Shattering Glass

by devovere



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Book: Full Circle - Kirsten Beyer, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Not Beta Read, Relaunch, Star Trek Bookverse, Venice, recurring nightmare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 23:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16274282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devovere/pseuds/devovere
Summary: An alternate reading of the Prologue toFull Circleby Kirsten Beyer.





	Shattering Glass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arcadia75](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcadia75/gifts), [Killermanatee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killermanatee/gifts).



> This is my first Relaunch fic. Deep gratitude to the community of the Voyager Book Club for fostering the reading and discussions that lead to this sort of writing. Apologies to all for its thoroughly depressing depiction of our beloved Chakotay.

He dreams it almost every night now.

It never happened, but it happens to him now, again and again.

The first time was the night after her funeral. He hadn’t thought he would sleep, but he woke up screaming her name.

He's started drinking. A lot. He’s not sure if he drinks to suppress the dream or to seek it out. It doesn’t seem to matter.

He’s forgotten he has friends, a sister, a counselor, an animal guide.

Even the war recedes in the face of the dream.

Always the same. Venice, the bridge of bare feet, the deserted café.

The mirror with the ribbon, symbol of his love, his undying love. The faith that she will come.

The footsteps behind him. Mark’s voice. The dread, the roaring in his ears.

_“Just tell me she’s not dead.”_

_“She is.”_

The sound of breaking glass is what wakes him every time. He can neither rouse himself before he drops the mirror nor stay asleep after it crashes to the cobblestones.

Waking, he imagines using a shard from the jeweled frame to slash his wrists, gouge out his eyes, attack Mark -- as if murder or self-mutilation could end this somehow, could change what happened. Even though this much, this scene, did not in fact take place.

Two officers in black armbands had met _Voyager_ upon docking. He hadn’t been surprised; someone on his crew must have lost someone in the battle with the Borg cube. He’d received them in the conference room, expecting to help them break the news to some ensign, planning his words of condolence and assistance in arranging bereavement leave.

They weren’t just officers. They were admirals: Paris and Montgomery. Counselor Cambridge had led them in, looking unusually somber. Tom Paris had followed, looking bewildered, darting worried glances at his father.

“Captain Chakotay. We regret to inform you …”

Memory glitches there. Tom is weeping, Owen’s hand on his son’s shoulder. Ken Montgomery says, “Captain?” with the tone of someone repeating himself. Cambridge leans against the wall by the doorway, arms folded.

Chakotay hears himself speak. “Thank you, Admiral. I’ll inform the crew. Funeral arrangements?” Then he is walking away, crossing the bridge, entering his ready room.

_Her_ ready room. The whole ship still, always, felt like hers. Like her. Even though it was his. As she, now, would never be.

A black hole of rage and despair had opened in his chest then. The dream came from it and returned him to it, every night. It was steadily swallowing everything he was or had ever been.

Soon he would no longer exist ...

Except to drink,

to sleep,

to dream the dream,

to wake up screaming

_Kathryn_

to the sound of shattering glass.

**Author's Note:**

> Arcardia75 was my partner in creative crime for this one. We were discussing how emotionally powerful yet unrealistic the scenario of _Full Circle_ 's Prologue is. In any universe with modern communications technology, it simply couldn't happen that Chakotay would get all the way to that cafe in Venice without having heard the news of Kathryn Janeway's death some days before. 
> 
> I half-expected Killermanatee to put me on book club probation for daring to suggest this treasured yet agonizing scene might not have actually happened in the bookverse's universe. Instead, she embraced the notion and urged me to write it up somehow and put it on Tumblr. So I sat down and cranked this little horror of a ficlet out in about an hour, and here we are. 
> 
> Not beta read because I didn't want to take the time and writing unbeta'd Fictober 2018 drabbles is making me thoroughly reckless.


End file.
